SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Stephen Jamieson
Apr 30, 2026
Lord Scott made the following comments in court:
“You have pled guilty to a single charge relating to your involvement in serious organised crime and agreeing with others to do various things you knew, or suspected, or ought reasonably to have known, or suspected would enable, or further the commission of serious organised crime.
The indictment refers in particular to your role in arranging for the collection, storage, onward supply and transmission of criminal property, namely money, and arranging for the collection and onward supply of the controlled the class A drugs cocaine and diamorphine or heroin and the class C controlled drug, etizolam.
Put short, you took part knowingly for a period of 54 days in a significant organised criminal operation which, based on the available snapshots of scale through quantity and value of drugs, clearly involved millions of pounds worth of drugs. Your role was a key operational role with significant financial benefit. It must have been significant in the operation of the enterprise over that period.
Your counsel has rightly acknowledged the gravity of the charge and the inevitability of a custodial sentence.
Of primary significance in this case is the scale of the organised criminal enterprise as glimpsed in the large sums of money involved and the quantity and value of drugs, as well as the period for which you were involved which was not marked in days but almost 2 months.
You have several previous convictions but only one of significance. On 28 October 2009, you appeared in the High Court on analogous charges involving being concerned in the supplying of drugs and associated proceeds of crime offences. You were sentenced to a total of 8 years imprisonment and made subject to a confiscation order for £127,625.
Mr Ross has given me further information about the fact that you started to seek to resolve this case by way of plea while still on remand in Dubai. He pointed out that, while serious and at the upper end of the range for this crime, the maximum sentence is 10 years and there are more serious examples, for instance a case involving conspiracy to murder.
Having regard to the whole circumstances of the case, in particular the gravity of the crime, only a custodial sentence is appropriate. It is necessary to punish you and to seek to deter you and others from behaving in this way.
It is worth observing that there is a significant difference between a contravention of section 28(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, and a similar charge involving being concerned in the supplying of a class A drug. That latter charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment whereas the charge you face carries a maximum sentence of only 10 years imprisonment. For the etizolam, the maximum sentence is 14 years imprisonment.
Had you been facing a similar charge under the Misuse of Drugs Act, a cross check with the Sentencing Guidelines for England and Wales would suggest a range of 9 to 12 years in custody with a suggested starting point of 10 years. Your previous conviction and the 3 different drugs involved would have placed you towards the top of that range having regard to your role which could not be described as a lesser one and the harm which would be in category 1.
While what you have pled guilty to is extremely serious, I have to recognise that there could be more serious examples, for example, involving a leading role higher up the chain of command or someone involved for a longer period. Inevitably this difference will lead to a sentence in your case which might appear relatively lenient but comparison is meaningless as the charges are very different.
But for your plea of guilty, the sentence would have been one of 9 years imprisonment.
I must and do recognise that there is a utilitarian value - that is primarily that there has been a saving of court time. This is the most significant aspect of mitigation in your case. I will therefore reduce the period of imprisonment by 30%. That gives a final sentence of 6 years imprisonment.
To take account of the total period spent on remand in Dubai, the sentence is backdated to 5 July 2025.
I will impose a Serious Crime Prevention Order for a period of 4 years. This will take effect from the date of your release.”
30 April 2026